


Human

by catchmeifyoucreon



Series: Supernatural Shorts [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels, Angst, Existential Crisis, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Humanity, Incongruous I know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-28 00:12:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15696234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catchmeifyoucreon/pseuds/catchmeifyoucreon
Summary: Anna has a lot of feelings. Or does she, now that she's no longer human? Dean is, weirdly, more helpful than she could have imagined.





	Human

**Author's Note:**

> This is a repost from my Tumblr; you can find the original post [here](http://nyebevans.tumblr.com/post/29073096621/can-you-write-something-concerning-annadean-with) \- I'm no longer in the SPN fandom, though.

Anna watches the Winchesters for a while. They bicker over the volume control as Dean drives them down endless winding roads. The bickering turns into singing after hours on the road; she thinks it might be a Led Zeppelin song, but she can’t be sure. Her parents had never really wanted her to listen to  _that sort_ of music.

When they eventually stop, in a small town in the middle of Mississippi, Sam goes into the nearest cheap takeaway and leaves Dean in the driver’s seat with the map and a red pen. Anna thinks that there won’t be a better moment – she pops up in the back seat of the Impala and says: “Hi!”

Dean’s hand jerks, drawing a thick red line through the middle of Mississippi on his map. “Jesus, Anna,” he says, dropping the pen and placing his palm against his chest. “Way to give a guy a heart attack.”

Anna can’t help but smile at the mock annoyance. “Nice to see you too,” she says. Dean rolls his eyes and folds the map up.

“What’s up?”

“Oh,” says Anna. She hadn’t assumed that there needed to be something wrong before she was allowed to visit them. “Nothing much. Just trying not to let Heaven figure out where I’m hiding.”

“And where  _are_ you hiding?” Dean asks. Anna levels her best Angel-Of-The-Lord look at him, and he actually  _pouts_  at her. “Aw, come on! Narrow it down a bit. Which continent?”

She presses her lips together, but says: “Africa and Asia, mostly. I went to Europe for a couple of weeks, too.”

“What d’you  _do_? Like, I’m guessing you don’t check into a Holiday Inn.”

“I don’t need to sleep, Dean,” Anna tells him. He looks stricken for a second, like he’s never really considered how different angelic life is from his own.

“What, never?”

“Not even if I wanted to.” God knows she’s tried. Actually, God probably doesn’t have a clue of the hours she’s spent lying down in caves, crevasses, fields and forests with her eyes screwed tightly shut, praying for him to just let her  _rest_.

“What about food?” Dean asks.

“I don’t need it,” she says. She thinks that maybe she shouldn’t have visited; she just feels worse than ever.

“No, but _can_ you eat?” His eyes are intense, his forehead creased in concern. Anna frowns.

“Well, yes, of course. It just isn’t –” she breaks off, her eyes flickering to the upholstery. She runs her fingers across it, but she can’t really feel the leather.

“Isn’t what?” Dean says. He reaches a hand over his seat and touches her shoulder. “Anna?”

She doesn’t want to admit it, but she can’t stop the words from coming out. “It doesn’t feel the same,” she says. “Nothing feels like it used to, when I was – when I was human. I can’t taste anything. I have to concentrate about ten times harder to actually feel things when I touch them, or – or –”

“Hey,” Dean says. This would be the moment that the human Anna would have tears welling up in her eyes, but angels can’t cry. “Anna, come on,” Dean says. He sounds very young, almost scared, like he’s a little kid watching his mom break down in front of him.

“Dean, I can’t live like this,” she says, and her voice doesn’t even shake. “I’m just not human anymore.”

“Don’t say that,” he says. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s true.” She can remember Anna Milton’s life as a journalism student, and it was nothing like this. No human experience is like this.

“Anna, hey. No. No, you are human. Look, you are.” Dean tugs at her hand and she lets him thread his fingers through hers. “Look, no angel would let me do that.”

Anna shakes her head. She can  _almost_ feel her hair tickle her neck. “What I do doesn’t change what I am.”

“But it does,” Dean insists. “You saved us when you took your grace back, right? You saved  _me_ , even though I’d just betrayed you. What’s more human than that?”

“Breathing?”

Dean shrugs. “Overrated.”

Anna can’t help the tiny smile that creeps over her face at that. Dean drops her hand as Sam reappears from the takeaway with pizza, and she suddenly feels acutely self-conscious.

“I should – I should go,” she says.

“No!” Dean says. “I mean, you don’t have to. Stay for pizza. Sam always gets extra garlic bread anyway.”

Anna thinks that perhaps she isn’t imagining the sudden, excited flip her stomach does at the mention of food. Garlic bread used to be her absolute favourite food when she was –

“– Okay,” Anna says, and she smells cheese and garlic and sandalwood cologne as Sam juggles pulling the car door open and holding the food. He’s grinning at her like she’s his closest friend, and it feels warm and safe: like home.

It feels  _human_.


End file.
